F1 Monaco GP: Sainz also suffers pit stop errors, loses 'top five'

Carlos Sainz says he also lost out to pit stop mistakes like Daniel Ricciardo in Monaco and feels he was denied a top five result

Carlos Sainz says he also lost out to pit stop mistakes like Daniel Ricciardo in the Monaco Grand Prix and feels he was denied a top five result.

While Red Bull shot to the headlines after its pit stop blunder ultimately cost Daniel Ricciardo a first win since 2014, Sainz feels he had the race pace to challenge inside the top five and an outside chance of a podium but two pit stop errors dropped him down to eighth.

The Spanish driver demonstrated consistently fast race pace but after each pit stop he got stuck behind slower rivals and haemorrhaged vital time and track positions. Sainz says Toro Rosso got its race strategy and set-up to an optimum but were denied by the pit errors.

"There were much more points on the table for us so definitely not happy with the final results after doing a very good race," Sainz said. "No mistakes, keeping it out of the walls, showing good pace on all three tyres.

"But every time we did a pit stop we conceded places so I'm not happy. There were more points available as Perez showed us because he was behind us at the first stop and he ended up third and us eighth.

"As soon as I had clean air I had incredible pace just that in the moment when it matters in the two pit stops we just didn't do the right things and the right times.

"For the first pit stop when we put on intermediates we had a gap of more than 21 seconds to Vettel. We hit trouble in the pits on the front right wheel, lost three or four seconds there, and then we had an unsafe release with the Force India car which passed us there.

"In the second pit stop we left just behind Rosberg, he was doing a very slow out lap. Fernando did an extra lap on a tyre that was 10 seconds slower at that time and still exited in front of us."

Sainz says he and the team will analyse the problems and look to eliminate them ahead of the next race in two weeks' time in Montreal.

"Until this race the pit stops and everything had improved a lot," he said. "This race we had a great chance to score big points but we didn't take that. Nobody will be happy with that."